The present disclosure relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method, and a program.
In order to measure the characteristics of microparticles such as cells, an apparatus (for example, a flow cytometer or the like) is used which irradiates a laser beam to microparticles labeled with fluorescent dyes, and measures the intensity or pattern of fluorescence generated from the excited fluorescent dyes. Further, a technology called multi-color measurement, which labels microparticles by using a plurality of fluorescent dyes, and measures the fluorescence emitted from each fluorescent dye irradiated with a laser beam with a plurality of photodetectors having different light reception frequency bands, has also been used as a technology which analyzes the characteristics of microparticles in more detail. Note that a transparent frequency band of an optical filter installed in each photodetector for restricting the light reception frequency band is designed according to the fluorescent wavelength of the fluorescence emitted from the fluorescent dye to be measured.
For example, FITC (fluorescein isothiocyanate), PE (phycoerythrin) or the like are used as fluorescent dyes. When observing a fluorescence spectrum obtained by irradiating a laser beam to microparticles labeled using these fluorescent dyes, the presence of fluorescence frequency bands which mutually overlap one another is confirmed. That is, in the case where multi-color measurement is performed, a component of fluorescence emitted from a fluorescent dye other than an intended fluorescent dye can be considered to leak into the fluorescence spectrum detected by each photodetector, even if the fluorescence obtained by irradiating the laser beam to the microparticles is divided into separate frequency bands by an optical filter. When such a leakage of fluorescence occurs, a deviation may occur between the fluorescence intensity measured by each photodetector and the fluorescence intensity of the fluorescence actually emitted from the intended fluorescent dye. As a result, a measurement error occurs.
In order to correct such a measurement error, a fluorescence correction process (compensation) is performed which subtracts the fluorescence intensity of the leaking part from the fluorescence intensity measured by the photodetector. This fluorescence correction process adds a correction to the measured fluorescence intensity (hereinafter, called a fluorescence correction), so that the fluorescence intensity measured by the photodetector approaches the fluorescence intensity of the fluorescence actually emitted from the intended fluorescent dye. For example, a method which mathematically corrects the fluorescence intensity is disclosed in JP 2003-83894A as a method which performs a fluorescence correction.
The method disclosed in JP 2003-83894A calculates the fluorescence intensity of the fluorescence actually emitted from the intended fluorescent dye, by considering a vector which has a fluorescence intensity (detection value) measured by each photodetector set as an element, and by applying an inverse matrix of a correction matrix set in advance in this vector. Note that the above described correction matrix is sometimes called a leakage matrix. The above described correction matrix is created by analyzing a florescence wavelength distribution of microparticles singly labeled with each fluorescent dye, and is arranged by setting the florescence wavelength distributions of each fluorescent dye as a row vector.